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Obama Job Approval Hits 50% for First Time Since 2013 by Lydia Saad Share on LinkedIn Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Print Story Highlights President's three-day average job rating through Sunday reaches 50% First time Obama has hit 50% threshold since 2013 In the past month, Obama up most among younger, lower-income adults PRINCETON, N.J. -- Less than a week after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address to Congress, his job approval rating reached 50% in Gallup Daily tracking conducted Friday through Sunday. This is the first time the president's rating has returned to that...

In a series of letters, Democrats on the select committee criticize Republicans for meeting secretly with witnesses and refusing to release information contrary to their narrative. Democrats on the special House panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks have accused Republicans of conducting the committee’s work without them and withholding information that would undermine the credibility of the panel itself, according to three letters obtained by Yahoo News. The previously unreported letters, sent by Democrats to the special select committee’s chairman, Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, underscore ongoing Democratic concerns that the panel is a partisan witch hunt rather than...

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck complained in a letter to Google’s chief executive on Dec. 30 that Waze could be “misused by those with criminal intent to endanger police officers and the community.” The Los Angeles Police Department said Monday it had not heard back from Google about whether it had addressed Beck’s concerns. Google purchased Waze for $966 million in 2013. There are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, although Beck said Waze was used in the killing of two New York Police Department officers on Dec. 20. The Instagram account of the gunman...

When folks like Andrew McCarthy articulated why our findings about then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s close adviser Huma Abedin were important, his camp was smeared as being discriminatory. His argument had nothing to do with discrimination or Islamophobia. It had everything to do with Abedin’s familial ties compromising her judgment and allegiances to the U.S. Constitution. Here we have an example that demonstrates this reality further and it comes via Kenneth Timmerman, who has picked up on the fact that the new Secretary of State – John Kerry – has a son-in-law with family still living in Iran. This...

Caroline Glick picked up on one article the Israeli left-wing paper Ha’aretz didn’t bother translating into English that details Obama’s involvement in the upcoming Israeli elections. A summary of the article is provided by IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis): Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today [January 26] that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections. One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including...

After 30 years of disastrous multi-billion-dollar public construction disasters, cost overruns, and scandals, it appears that a bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston may be the last straw for overtaxed voters in the deep-blue state of Massachusetts. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) gave Boston the nod as the American city to bid for the 2024 summer games. In its presentation, the pro-games group Boston 2024 smugly informed the USOC that “Boston is overwhelmingly united in its bid.” Er, no. Critics quickly began comparing the Olympics to the “Big Dig,” the ambitious downtown Boston highway project...

It’s been formally acknowledged that U.S. NATO ‘ally’ Turkey is providing safe haven to leaders of Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) so designated by the U.S. State Department. By its very definition, an FTO should be considered declared enemy of the U.S. Despite this, Turkey doesn’t appear to be paying any price. Another player in all this is the small nation of Qatar. It is desperately trying to play both sides of a political fence as leaders of Hamas – to include the terrorist organization’s political leader Khaled Meshaal – has been forcibly relocated to Turkey. The reason these...

Many consumers don’t like it when stores check their receipts on the way out of the building, claiming it treats all shoppers like shoplifting suspects. But a trio of scammers had no problem showing their receipt at Lowe’s, running a multi-state shoplifting/return scheme for several months. According to WAVE3, the men would start out from their home base in the Danville, KY, area and then drive the 90-ish miles to Southern Indiana, swiping stuff from various Lowe’s stores along the way. But this wasn’t a simple matter of walking out of the store with power tools and hoping no one...

Biggest corporate lay-off in history is expected within days, with IBM believed to be scrapping 110,000 of its 430,000 workforce around the world IBM is preparing to scrap 110,000 of its global 430,000 workforce in the biggest corporate cull in the computer giant's history, a report has revealed. The company will make the job cuts this week under a plan known internally as 'project chrome', according to US technology blogger Robert Cringely on Forbes website. IBM is in the process of layoffs, as disclosed in its latest earnings report last week but said the number of job losses was significantly...

Here is the full text of the bill: A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT PROVIDING FOR AN ENHANCED SENTENCE FOR A PERSON CONVICTED OF A FORCIBLE FELONY AGAINST A PREGNANT WOMAN." BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA: NEW SECTION. Section 1. Additional sentence for forcible felony against pregnant woman. (1) An offender who is convicted of committing a forcible felony, as defined in 45-2-101, against a pregnant woman and who, at the time of the offense, knew or should have known that the woman was pregnant shall, in addition to the punishment provided...

Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday. The number comes from figures buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization's new ten-year budget outlook. The best-case scenario described by the CBO would result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured in 2025, compared to the year before the Affordable Care Act took effect. Pulling...

Nancy Pelosi has big problems in her ranks. The California lawmaker is facing some of the most serious unrest she’s ever seen in her dozen years as the leader of the House Democrats: Members complain that the party has no message and no clear plan to retake the majority, despite good news on the economy that should have brought rewards at the polls. They also accuse senior lawmakers of failing to pull their weight in dues as they occupy coveted committee slots. Pelosi remains the pre-eminent force in her caucus, and nobody is stepping up to challenge her. But the...

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - Authorities said they have found two bodies believed to be those of a missing Cobb County couple after a long search Monday. During a press conference late Monday afternoon, Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson said the bodies of a man and woman matching their description were found a short ways away from the car belonging to the couple. They said that car was found submerged in a lake. "My heart goes out to the Runion family. We've done everything we possibly could do to get this family found, get their parents found, unfortunately it's a sad...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of a former Nevada lobbyist accused of making illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Harry Reid's 2010 reelection campaign. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected F. Harvey Whittemore's contention that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict him. Prosecutors say Whittemore promised to raise money for Reid in 2007 and distributed $145,000 to 17 relatives and employees, each of whom then made the maximum contribution of $4,600 to Reid's campaign and kept $400.

Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobny allegedly conspired to gather intelligence on behalf of Russia and to recruit Americans. Federal prosecutors in New York have unveiled criminal charges against three men for their alleged involvement in a spying scheme for Russia’s foreign intelligence service. According to a criminal complaint, Evgeny Buryakov, Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy conspired in the United States to gather intelligence on behalf of Russia and to recruit New York City residents to help. The conspiracy ran from 2012 to the present, and during that time, Buryakov worked at a bank, Sporyshev was a Russian trade...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court has approved former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s request to remain free while he appeals his corruption convictions. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond said McDonnell’s appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact that could warrant reversal or a new trial. Special coverage: The McDonnel corruption trial The court also ordered that briefs in the case be filed by March 2 and set a May 12 hearing. A jury last year found McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of taking gifts and loans from a vitamin executive in...

Local governments are increasingly promoting mixed-income housing as a tool for fighting poverty, on the assumption that economic integration gives low-income children a better chance at overcoming poverty. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, for instance, has set a target of building 200,000 affordable housing units in the city, and he wants them to be distributed throughout mixed-income and more affluent neighborhoods. “Our goal is really to foster more economically diverse neighborhoods,” Alicia Glen, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, told the New York Times. These programs rest on the assumption that mixed-income communities benefit low-income residents. Poorer...

Encouraged by the Democrat Media complex to write his own narrative, President Obama has apparently decided to deliver it in the form of a comic book supervillain monologue. Obama’s “swagger” has led us beyond the realm of “laughingstock” status and straight into comic book adventure territory. The classic elements are there: the villain with his faithful yet bumbling sidekicks, his plan to “transform” the world, monologues where he lectures and justifies. The superhero, however, has yet to make his entrance. In this series, the Democrat Media complex edits the script, and try as they might to cast Obama as the...

Last week, President Obama omitted mention of gun control in a State of the Union address for the first time since 2012. Politically, that decision might make sense. In the past year, the United States suffered fewer widely-covered massacres involving firearms, and politicians may have been less inclined to pursue gun control for this reason. The recent shooting at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and the recent increase in Boston's gun homicide rate the homicide rate, however, highlight the fact that restricting access to firearms remains a significant public safety issue both locally and nationwide

After months of speculation Leon Brittan has finally been publicly named as one of the politicians at the centre of sexual rape allegations from the 1970s and 1980s. Two men have come forward to say they were abused by the former Home Secretary, who died last week. He is accused of having attended paedophile sex parties at the Elm Park Guest House in West London. With one former Social Worker claiming she saw photographs of the peer with naked boys sitting on his knee at the hotel, which was ultimately closed down for being a brothel. Brittan also stands accused...